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[–] 19 points 2 days ago

I almost hate these fucking snakes more than maga, at least maga owns their ugly and does it overtly. These fuckers are covert snakes in the grass.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    Is this the same NYT that lets companies write articles and pretends they are from real journalists?

    "Exxon Mobil’s relationship with the New York Times is a case study in how the fossil fuel industry’s climate denialism has evolved over the past 20 years. Beginning in the 1970s, Exxon Mobil published an “advertorial” every Thursday on the New York Times editorial page."

    https://theintercept.com/2019/10/31/exxon-mobil-massachusetts-climate-change-lawsuit-greenwashing/

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago

    We could recall the NYT fabricating rape allegations against Hamas in october 7, not calling out biden's blood libel forcefully if at all when he falsely claimed they beheaded 40 babies and he saw the footage of it, then never corrected himself, and the like.

    They have long equated criticism of the country's actions with bigotry against jews, or salmon or some shit I forget how they put it.

    They have no credibility, as a former reader of the times, religiously, I fucking hate them now, for 8 years I fucking hate them.

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  • [–] 53 points 2 days ago (26 children)

    Americans need to realize the centre is actually 2 miles left of their “extreme left wing”.

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  • [–] 25 points 2 days ago (24 children)

    That's what I'm saying. Free healthcare, affordable housing, get prices under control. These are the things almost everyone wants

    This is where I think praxis gets in the way. You have to meet people where they are, and they're not ready for a new ideology or to learn a new analytical lens to view the world

    People are ready for change though. They've had enough of corruption and profiteering of their suffering. They overwhelmingly want what leftists and progressives want, they need to be shown that progressive candidates will actually deliver when elected

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  • [+] -8 points 2 days ago (23 children)

    But... WHO'S going to fix costs! How are they supposed to do it.

    I think instead of chanting "free health care", someone needs to sit down and figure out the costs to free health care on an average basis and then look at what the average person pays currently, and see how that compares.

    If, for example, the Gov says "hey, we'll tax you $500/mo for this healthcare" but its benefits are actually decent, and the average person pays $700 anyway, you'd get a lt more people on board with concrete info. If you could choose $500 for basic and $650 for higher coverage or something, maybe that's a better way to go.

    Affordable housing means creating laws to ban and block corporations from "investing" in real estate as well as foreign entities. That'd help free up housing, help with ownership vs tenant/renting.

    Wanting something is one thing, sticking to change is another, and both sides are corrupt with money. I think it'll be harder than it looks!

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  • [–] 13 points 2 days ago (18 children)

    I think instead of chanting "free health care", someone needs to sit down and figure out the costs to free health care on an average basis and then look at what the average person pays currently, and see how that compares.If, for example, the Gov says "hey, we'll tax you $500/mo for this healthcare" but its benefits are actually decent, and the average person pays $700 anyway, you'd get a lt more people on board with concrete info. If you could choose $500 for basic and $650 for higher coverage or something, maybe that's a better way to go.

    This is demonstratively not correct... You think no one has crunched the numbers? It's been done so many times

    How about we all pay nothing, and everyone gets full and free access to healthcare?

    Turns out, the government would save money. Emergency rooms legally can't turn away people, and the amount of unpaid emergency care costs more than actually giving everyone healthcare. It's not even close

    This doesn't really win undecided people over though. They don't actually care about the numbers... They don't believe it. Because they don't trust the people presenting the numbers, and they're not going to dig through the numbers themselves

    Affordable housing means creating laws to ban and block corporations from "investing" in real estate as well as foreign entities. That'd help free up housing, help with ownership vs tenant/renting.

    Yeah, that's part of the plan, along with cutting back the insane amount of zoning and regulation that makes affordable new housing so financially difficult to materialize. It's not an unknown problem

    The questions you're asking have been answered, over and over. So why don't you know the answers to these questions already?

    It's because it's bad messaging. It's just not an effective method of getting people on board. It doesn't stick in people's heads.

    You probably are doubting my assertions even now, right? I'd love to be wrong, please tell me if I've convinced you though this type of messaging and I'll reevaluate it's effectiveness

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    The questions you're asking have been answered, over and over. So why don't you know the answers to these questions already?

    Because they're a yang account for the center party, or whatever the fuck it's called now.

    So the point isn't to know things is to cast doubts on actually fixing issues.

    Examples see them blaming er costs on government insurance and then correctly pointing out insurance buys politicians but as a reason why universal Healthcare won't work

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (10 children)

    I’d love to be wrong, please tell me if I’ve convinced you though this type of messaging and I’ll reevaluate it’s effectiveness

    You say that these questions have been answered repeatedly, but didn't provide a link to any political candidate that brought it up during the last election cycle. I can easily find Republicans talking about how Medicare For All is too expensive, but I have a hard time finding the opposite.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (8 children)

    Why would I bother? It's bad messaging. I don't believe any amount of sources would satisfy you

    But another kind poster provided a link, El-Sayed did so this election cycle, exactly as requested. Sanders has been making these presentations for decades as well, I'm sure you could find those easily if you want to

    And I don't know why you put that qualifier of "this election cycle" on it... These midterms have been a blowout for progressives, doesn't the fact that they won without making the details of a Medicare for all plan front and center prove my point?

    It's simply bad messaging. It does not win new people over, it only informs the people who already support healthcare reform that it's even cheaper and simpler than we imagined it would be

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (7 children)

    I'm sorry, I thought you were sincere with that bit I quoted! I'm highly in favor of M4A, and have many critiques on how we can more effectively talk about it.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 day ago (6 children)

    Oh, I was entirely sincere. Had you been convinced, or at least conditionally convinced, I would've responded very differently

    Instead you asked for strangely specific proof... And then followed up to explicitly confirm you weren't sincere

    My entire point was your "advice" on how to win people to the cause was bad messaging. Now you've revealed you don't believe in the cause at all

    What kind of idiot takes strategic cues from people who want them to fail?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (5 children)

    Lmao, did you get me confused with the other guy you were talking to?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (4 children)

    Wait... Yeah, apparently. My bad

    I don't really read names, usually I just kinda remember their shape? It usually works, even if it makes no sense to anyone else

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (3 children)

    Yeah, so, I agree with you that the messaging on this topic is generally terrible, lmao.

    This past election cycle, I have seen absolutely zero politicians talking favorably about it. I've heard El Sayed and Bernie have said something, but I can't find any infographics or anything written at a 3rd grade reading level that I could share with low-education/low-information voters. I try to look for it, and the DuckDuckGo search mostly gives me anti-M4A shit.

    So I was trying to ask if you had anything.

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  • [–] 1 point 18 hours ago (2 children)

    Nah, I don't have anything like that on hand. I think El-Sayed and Bernie are both good speakers that break it down as well as you really can, but ultimately it's a bunch of numbers

    You might try to find a YouTube breakdown on it, the guy who does the gorilla/banana explanations is really good at dumbing down financial bullshittery,I wonder if he's made one. I think "how money works" does really clean explanations with infographics, but it's less dumbed down and more just clearly illustrated... I'm not certain if either of them have such a video, but I'd be a little surprised if they didn't

    You could also look for Bernie's slide decks, they have to be floating around somewhere and have hard figures

    Ultimately, I just don't think it's good messaging though. We live in a world of feelings over facts (especially by people who claim the opposite). It's really easy to ignore these big numbers or to attack the credibility of the presenter

    I think it's more effective to argue two things. First, a society that allows preventable deaths can't call itself civilized. Second, most wealthy countries spend less, have better health outcomes, and have taxes similar or lower to the US

    While it's true that we would literally save money with any of these solutions (and I think M4A is worse than single payer or nationalizing healthcare, it's just simpler because the structure is already in place), unconvinced people just will not believe we can essentially do it for free.

    We have a cultural skepticism about "a free lunch", so I think it's better to first convince people that it's something we are morally obligated and/or that our healthcare system is uniquely broken and desperately needs some kind of reform

    I'll keep an eye out and try to pass it along if I come across something like you're looking for, search is just really bad these days or I'd try to grab you something

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  • [–] 1 point 17 hours ago (1 child)

    It’s really easy to ignore these big numbers or to attack the credibility of the presenter

    Yeah, I think part of the problem is that we kneejerk so hard away from using appeals to emotion, that we forget people check out with lists of dry facts. It feels like homework, and the average American is barely literate to begin with. We're already busy trying to balance our household budgets, and nobody wants to do more math that the government should be doing for us anyways.

    First, a society that allows preventable deaths can’t call itself civilized. Second, most wealthy countries spend less, have better health outcomes, and have taxes similar or lower to the US

    I don't know if the civilized angle would land, tbh. I grew up in Oklahoma, and it just feels like something that'd set people off down there. People respond poorly to moral arguments if it's not a position they already agree with, or coming from an authority they already trust. Now, if we could get pastors to make that argument from the megachurch pulpit, or the evangelical television channel, it might be different, but good fucking luck with that, lmao.

    Second, most wealthy countries spend less, have better health outcomes, and have taxes similar or lower to the US

    I think this would go a long way if it were in infographic form, coupled with a political campaign about lowering the cost of healthcare.

    I think it'd also be beneficial to do more framing of insurance companies as greedy middlemen, which a lot of working-class people hate here. I don't understand why there isn't more hammering on the fact that private insurance takes your money and doesn't cover fuck all. Like, why does the opposition get to talk about fictional death panels, but we can't even run ads about insurance companies using AI to jack up prices, deny claims, and make record profits? Please!

    I’ll keep an eye out and try to pass it along if I come across something like you’re looking for, search is just really bad these days or I’d try to grab you something

    Thanks, I appreciate it!

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  • [–] 1 point 8 hours ago

    I think it'd also be beneficial to do more framing of insurance companies as greedy middlemen, which a lot of working-class people hate here. I don't understand why there isn't more hammering on the fact that private insurance takes your money and doesn't cover fuck all. Like, why does the opposition get to talk about fictional death panels, but we can't even run ads about insurance companies using AI to jack up prices, deny claims, and make record profits? Please!

    Oh yeah, this is a good angle. Pretty much everyone not only hates insurance companies, but we all also have a story of someone in our lives getting screwed over by them

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  • [–] -1 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    I don't see how healthcare for all could be done for "free" the way current systems are setup. My last ER visit was over $12,000 and insurance helped, but I don't see how the Gov could afford that without some "insurance" plan themselves.. If that's the case, they're getting ripped off and therefore have more waste in spending. It's a huge undertaking too many would/could take advantage of; and could be years before anyone caught.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    The reason your ER bill was $12k is because of healthcare math

    The insurance company will agree to pay, say 40% of the bill. They'll expect you to pay a smaller percentage, say 10%, and the hospital eats the rest of the cost

    So that $12k figure is an amount no one ever pays. If you were self pay, if you simply ask them for an itemized bill you'll get back something lower. If you even slightly negotiate, you might end up paying like 30% of that lower bill

    As for how it all becomes "free"? There's a lot of people who can't or won't pay the $2500 or whatever the hospital needs to cover your care, pay their people, and keep the lights on

    So all the unpaid emergency bills go through healthcare math again. The government may pay 60% of the money the hospital gets back, and the hospital is expected to eat the rest. So the bill needs to be inflated so the hospital makes money off this care

    It's all financial bullshittery, but at the end of the day the government pays huge amounts for all the people who use the ER as their primary medical care

    If a homeless man has a heart attack, that could be $50-80k the government pays a part of

    That same heart attack could likely have been prevented for a few hundred dollars of doctor time/tests, and then a $4 per month prescription

    TLDR: it didn't cost the hospital anywhere near $12k for your visit, and no one is expected to actually pay 12k. Emergency care is still expensive though, and the government basically pays for that

    Instead of paying for the uncovered ER care, preventative care is really really cheap.

    https://hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb311-ED-visit-costs-2021.pdf

    According to that, in 2021 the federal government paid 80 billion in ED (emergency department) treat and release. That's only part of the *free" money the government could instead use towards preventative care

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  • [–] -1 points 1 day ago

    I understand the visit didn't actually cost that. But a huge part of the reason it got to that point in the first place was a for-profit healthcare system supplemented by the Gov paying for a portion too!

    It's like having your cake and eating it too. You should either have the Gov fund it, or is for-profit and private. Just like the higher education got gov grants and scholarship money, everyone thought "free money" so costs increased and eventually went sky high, ultimately costing students more money.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    It didn't cost $12,000. It was priced at $12,000.

    There is a reason 3/4 countries on the planet, and every single developed country on the planet all have some type of public healthcare. When you take the profit out of a monopoly, the price drops so drastically it becomes affordable.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Good luck trying to dissolve a trillion dollar industry that employs thousands (insurance companies), and a lot of wealthy leadership fund politicians.

    It's an uphill battle, not that it's impossible... But we need to take the country by storm. Like the dems did with the Senate, but start taking over mayors, governors, and eventually presidency so that we supplant the system with a newer better one!

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  • [–] 1 point 7 hours ago

    If you actually believe what you say you believe you could help everybody out by at least trying to appear like you support the dissolution of the trillion dollar industry. Until this comment i had figured you were concern trolling with how hard you’ve been trying to shut everyone down for believing it could be done.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    Both sides are not the same amount or types of corrupt. That’s like saying a jay walker and a murderer are both criminals.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    FYI, this article and the NYT article it's referring to both seem to be a year old.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 2 days ago
    [–] 5 points 1 day ago

    Ross Douthat cant even choose which conservative Christian sect to follow let alone still call himself anything approaching a liberal. Hes a monarchist who pretends to like democracy when hes in mixed political company.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago

    We've been pursuing this centrist strategy since the oligarchy seized control of it as per their long game to overthrow democracy agreed to in the Business Roundtable of 1971.

    That the times still argues this, despite hillary, biden, kamala, removes ANY credibility they might have had left. They are the ENEMY. They don't understand the situation, but they think they do because they went to Ivy League schools, (and probably fucked some children with Epstein that Israel now has the recordings of.)

    There is no reasoning with them, they are delusional, arrogant, and think they are smarter than all of us.

    Popular reform is the only way out of this. But silver lining, these aristocrats running the Times will lose their standing and wealth along with everyone else if we keep following their model, if not end up in federal prison and their assets seized by the feds.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago

    When your legs don't work like they used to anymore, it's probably because you don't have a backbone.

    Positioning yourself in the middle on every subject, regardless of context, doesn't make you the voice of reason. When you can hear both sides and stick your head in the sand, sitting on the fence drives a wedge up your hole. There's no two sides to genocide. There's no nuance in torturing bystanders.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im3gqUQ1k1g

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  • [–] 9 points 2 days ago

    Centrists just saying shit. They're never going to admit that they are wrong. They need to be beaten and ignored.

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  • the same paper that supports palestinian genocide and the genocide of trans people is wrong about politics?! the times is another propaganda mill that is fine getting people killed. don't play their word games, share their recipes, click their links. fuck the nyt.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago

    Continuing to get fucked out of affordable healthcare and housing while we pay for endless wars is not “winning”

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago* (1 child)

    no one anywhere is excited to vote for means tested health care. It would require some advanced statistics to make the case they outperform good progressive candidates.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago

    Yeah, means testing will only make going to universal health care -- the real goal -- far more complex than it needs to be. I suspect it is just another way to try to delay any real change by moving the goal posts and throwing a few more wrenches into the works.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    The "center" is actually mostly libertarians who don't want any government involvement but are also not really die hard bigots. I genuinely understand why they think the solution is candidates that have 0 real ideals and stay out of everyone's lives, they are just too dumb to comprehend what they actually want is more in line with post-left Anarchism.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    You are confusing a faction of independents with moderates/centrists.

    Not the same at all. Centrists are establishment, the libertarian (voters, not their politicians,) are by and large dissident, and potential allies we need to win.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago*

    I think you are confusing the idea of a "centrist" with those who actually identify as centrists (in the USA, at least). I have known MANY american "centrists", and they are usually not pro establishment, hence why they do not consider themselves left or right, because they see both as problematic authoritarian groups usually. Again, that is not all centrists, some do fit your idea, but most American "Centrists" are actually just post-left and uneducated.

    I myself used to identify as centrist before I learned the actual depth of the political landscape.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 hours ago

    Are we winning yet?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 child)

    First, that pic in the thumbnail is Ross Douthat, a MAGA chode who regularly spews out fantastical right-wing propaganda regurge for NYT. He didn't write this article and he wasn't named in the linked NYT piece, but seeing his face next to anything tells me it's likely absolute shit. It's like seeing Laura Loomer's or Elon Musk's face next to an editorial: hard NO.

    Second, the New York Times is first and foremost a paper for the billionaires of New York. Much like the Wall Street Journal, and its editorials have gone the exact same way: farther and farther to the right, cherry-picked and to the specific end of telling the billionaires what they want to hear. Both papers are great on facts, but look carefully at how those facts are situated, for whom, to what end -- and how much got left out that would have created a balanced look.

    Read whatever you want, but with mainstream media it's good to know the history and proven goals of that organization before assuming anything is true.

    EDITED to clarify I actually like this article and agree with much of it; I was referring to the NYT article and columnist that this article is rebutting, and failed to clearly say so. Apologies for the confusion.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    They're not wrong, they're lying.

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  • [+] 1 point 1 day ago
    [+] -11 points 2 days ago* (6 children)

    Nathan, you goofball.

    Only 28% of voters are Democrats, and only about 10% of independents (44% of voters) are to the left of Democrats.

    I'm not a mathematics professor, but I believe that means that 62% of voters aren't as left as Democrats. They vote too, you see. You're supposed to represent everybody, that's your job.

    Independents are 44% of voters, and about 30% of those are centrists. Ignore them at your peril.

    There are many things left and center agree on (like term limits, minimum wage increase, no war, pre-Reagan taxes on the wealthy, universal healthcare, age limits on reps).

    Serve your electorate or lose.

    Partisans lie. Math does not. Do the math.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/fact-sheet/party-affiliation-fact-sheet-npors/

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago*

    Wrong. Progressives, and populists, are just as numerous in the democratic electorate as the sheep. An equal number mostly supports the moderates because they sell themselves as the safe choice.

    Same with the republicans in the numbers. 2/3 are voting AGAINST the other guy, not for your guy.

    GTFO.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago

    The data linked does say that claim, but speaking broadly the public's views are not independent of what politicians do and say, they are many times changed by them

    For some example: Support for gay marriage and interaction marriage both went up dramatically after they were legalized. Or similarly, support for NYC congestion pricing was terrible until it happened and people loved it and it's now widely liked.


    Public opinion is not static. When things visibly work, people generally like them. When they visible fail, people don't. Most people don't really vote much on policy as much as they vote off of trust of someone to change things. People are fed up of things not working. The details of its failure are less important to most of the electorate than the fact that it's failing and must change

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  • [–] 0 points 2 days ago

    Ummm, no.

    Only the president represents all Americans.

    Every member elected to Congress is there to represent their specific constituents and districts. And the political leaning of those districts varies wildly. While senators are there to represent their particular state.

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